Even as a little kid, I was never impressed by the hippies. They looked filthy and I thought they were just 'pretending.' No wonder I embraced FZ later in life. I was in the Haight Asbury as a tourist in the Summer of Love. I was 4 years old and I remember my father snapping pictures of the animals in the zoo. A few years later while in the first grade at parochial school, the hippies hung around the local park across from the church. I was proud of my school uniform and felt superior to the smelly humans. Right abut that time, Charles Manson made headlines, and that's all she wrote. Manson, to a kid my age, was the ultimate hippie.

Somehow I never made any connection between Charles Manson & Co. and "hippies". I just though Manson was a crazy psychotic and his long hair and bushy beard was pure coincidence. Of course just after his arrest he did shave his head and carve a swastika on his forehead which looked very "un-hippie-like".Of course there were all those years in during which "hippie" was completely gone from all serious usage and very suddenly started to get used again, presumably to describe some particular kind of people in some definitive way. Hearing it used by FZ in 1980 when I finally got hold of FZ's '77 release, "Zappa In New York" on "Honey, Don'tcha Want A Man Like Me?" sounded very funny if not dated or as if he was using it jokingly on a song that was humorous anyway. It was about on the same order as "beatnik".

--Batchain

he he. The line in the song is "she saw a REAL hippie." Meaning, them throwbacks wuz still around in '76. So, yea, yr right, it is sorta 'beatnik' like, as Frank intended, I'd say. But the problem here is, Zappa was considered to be a hippie himself. He had long hair and made his name in the 60's. That equals hippie to most. I'm not getting technical here. Maynard G. Krebbs = beatnik, right?Anyway, no hippie connection to Manson!? Are you in denial!? Or maybe didn't go to Catholic school, where we would obsess over these things.

Blessed Sisters of the Order of the Holy Snatch! For over a year I went to Cath-o-lic school and they made me pay through the nose and out the asshole before tossing me out of confines of their sanctified school! Why, even Fr. Sullivan didn't want to fuck me or put that wretched sausage in my mouth a first time!
As best as I remember it all that "hippie" shit was used to sell magazines, newspapers and TV shows. I remember seeing The Mamas and Papas on TV and hearing what "hippies" they were -- but they weren't a marauding bunch of murderers from the mountains!
I even saw an article on the "long-forgotten beatniks of yesteryear" in either "Life" or "Look" magazine and there were photos of "beatniks" and one of them had this guy in it with long, past-the-shoulders hair and thin-lensed miners glasses who looked more like a John Lennon-in-the-early-'70s look-alike than anything I had heard about "beatniks in the '50s commonly sporting goatees".
No, wild-eyed "Charlie" in his most famous photograph still didn't connect "hippies" with psychotic killers.
But there never was a "drug-crazed youth movement" in any year!
Just take the entire US population during its most hippie-populated year and compare those 15 to 30 years of age who were ordinary, unremarkable anybodies and you're up to around 99% of the population. The mock-hippie fashions were put out by the clothing industry because they were in a business that sold clothes for profit and changing stuff around as fast as they can is in that industry's best financial interests. It's just pure cash!
Of course today it's crazy because the tech industry is changing faster than the clothing industry and people even camped out in front of tech retail stores the night before the first day "iPhones" became available. The last time I saw anything like that was August 24, 1995 when "Windows 95" became available. Just 12 years and 6 days ago!

Oops! Sorry to jump from Timothy Leary to Bill Gates so abruptly but you can see where I'm heading with this slightly freewheeling post.

Or fancy hip, groovy, much-more-aware young "pebbles" wearing these incredible trousers, Flairs right? (which covered the plateau-heels* later in the early 70s completely), costumes in all colors, suited or not, t-shirts of none-before seen splendidness, some of'em batik, self-made, the most fantastic chemises/shirts, hats and hoods. Almost all were politically and socially either involved or interested. Do not forget the messes all over the kitchen, lounge, corridor, house, when freaks got together in a flat-share, listening to prockrock.

... what would the world be like if a certain pc-geez had been told about that movement, ..lemme ...laugh.

..hhhh, the 7-teeth, when on asking at the hawker's tray - ...just surveying: a coach with three ponies and a flat tire (noncents).. - one could get ey-dit: feast consisting in Fish&Ships and a newspaper...

Born in 54. Had very catholic tastes by the end of the sixties being a piano playing cathederal choir singing budding rock guitar fumbling soul dancing folk fan. Adults in the English midlands tut - tuttrd at hippies so when I got my first big pocketted fur coat Uncle Meat was one of the first albums I stole cos the cover was so intriguing. I think that was around 1970. Was so blown away by how different it all was and impressed by how much my parents hated it that I went out and got Hot Rats. The first few bars of Peaches had me hooked forever. Still got those albums and still play them. Much of it is truly engraved into the fabric of my brain.
Bizarre.
I remember thinking at the time that those American musicians were way ahead! Took me a while to realise it was just Frank. Took a while to filter through so, yep, I remember the sixties full of Cream, Status, Free, King Crimson, Edgar Broughton, Moody Blues... FZ was just a little late arriving.

Oh. France is OK... its just full of French people.
Belgium’s a different matter.....

Does anyone here who were around in the late 60's remember how much underground zappa was ?

It looked like Zappa was king of underground music for a while.Having an uncanny merchandising flair put him above others in that arena.But of course beneath all of that he was a classical composer trying various stances in music.To me before the likes of Zappa & Beefheart you just had the post-1966 progressive Beatles,the Stones,the Doors & the L.A. scene...And all of them in their respective ways were caught up in being 'cool' which somehow was related to 'hippie-cool' (before that was 'beatnik-cool' & after that was 'punk-cool' or 'metal-cool' & then 'bling-bling-cool' & then 'grunge-cool' etc. etc.).Zappa would have ads in the Berkeley Barb & Ramparts magazine- voices for the left or fringe-left or the underground.But in 1970 he said that he didn't give a shit.In other words,no semblance of being identified at that time with any sort of political leanings.Only the music mattered.

Let us revive the seven of heaven years (~'67 ~ '73) Don't mind the drugs, just the atmosphere in the freaky communi'y and never mind the other gray rats, sort of. ..if U know what's being meant. Hippies--knowledge-base.

..plus get yourself T. Pratchett's "Soul-Music"; this reading spree byeHawaii is full of parody, ..and still i'm wondering how a lock&lol reef, eh riff got into this world and then rushed around it. Theee Info Page for ya.

Lotta people on this forum, including me, were born in '54. First memory I have of FZ is that in all the comic books I bought in '67 he had full-page ads for WOIINTM. within a year or so, I was hooked on UM. Living through the '60s as a young teenager, you knew the music was great and the world was splitting apart. I remember how I knew that 1968 was one of the cruelest years i would live through, and I was right.

It let me feel sympathetic for you, Twee.
..when anyone thinks he went through a time in the past which could be called abysmal is to leave no suitable word for the ensuing decades. (it means stretching the word euphemism beyond ... where no angel dares ..beware of mansokind)

Ney, the few years mentioned were the strongest, one received so much power that even the washing-op depicted no obstacle.

LOL Yuppies co-opted what people (hippies, freaks, what-have-you) did and made it into the gourmet, higher priced spread, freeze dried, fakey flakey, new age substitute for creativity and fearless exploration.

That mystery roach is just taking you all away ,Taking you all away!So step right up be an eggman today!1 post.No Walrus no way!Kid throw's out a couple of dates and names you all go goo-goo. I was Frank and now i'm his son. The dream is still going on Dweeze and the Mothers! Get it now ,or you never got it before.Music is the best!12/12/54 in S.F, thats my b-day66-67 Cool,then somebody said all the kids like me wear flowers and come on. To a city that do not, can not , help you , find nirvana,bliss,dope ect.In 67 i shared soup that i helped make with the Diggers. By 68 too many others needed it! I was 13 and new it was over! I still wonder why folks come here,think we got the best benifits?Visit but then,Go home, mid-west,east coast,anywhere but here!

That mystery roach is just taking you all away ,Taking you all away!So step right up be an eggman today!1 post.No Walrus no way!Kid throw's out a couple of dates and names you all go goo-goo. I was Frank and now i'm his son. The dream is still going on Dweeze and the Mothers! Get it now ,or you never got it before.Music is the best!12/12/54 in S.F, thats my b-day66-67 Cool,then somebody said all the kids like me wear flowers and come on. To a city that do not, can not , help you , find nirvana,bliss,dope ect.In 67 i shared soup that i helped make with the Diggers. By 68 too many others needed it! I was 13 and new it was over! I still wonder why folks come here,think we got the best benifits?Visit but then,Go home, mid-west,east coast,anywhere but here!

Why don't you guys stay home and quite moving to the Black Hills, And Montana ?

_________________A government Bureau is the closest thing to eternal life on earth that you will ever see

I was born in '62. My sister was 18 in 68 so she made sure i had the mod pants and a davy crocket coat with fringes. She had WOIIFTM. My first taste of what was to become a lifetime adventure. I was a miniature hippy in one of her highschool plays. I remember the 70' better. Got my first pair of Bell Bottoms with the wide belt when i was 8 or 9.

_________________"Welcome to the Frank Zappa Memorial Country Club & BBQ" at wgt.com 45 members and counting.

Does anyone here who were around in the late 60's remember how much underground zappa was ?

He was underground by definition. There was a class of artists that defined WHAT underground was. The borders of that definition were fuzzy, certainly. Beefheart, Zappa, Lou Reed were among that class for sure. Most airplay was on FM here in Vancouver, not to hide it so much, but that sort of music just didn't sell shit, which was what AM was for. Naturally each city had its own character of what constituted 'underground', though.

You could to a department store record-rack and see Freak Out, sure. Or Weasels Ripped My Flesh, and oh man! Or Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica. You just knew from that artwork that these guys were just wrong, and determined to be wrong. The titles were wrong: 'Return of Son of Monster Magnet'. 'Help, I'm a Rock'. I mean WTF?! Nobody can write titles like that anymore. It's like some ageless Dada that can't be simulated or made up anymore.

But it wasn't underground such that you had to buy it from some guy who knew some guy.

I still think they are underground. Freak Out is 44 years old, and no one has caught up with that. It is as weird and creative and young and brilliant and wrong and right now as it ever was.

Underground music refers to a variety of music subgenres that usually develop a subcultural cult following despite their lack of mainstream appeal, visibility, or commercial promotion. Underground bands and artists are often signed with independent record labels, and they typically perform in small venues and promote their music through word-of-mouth.

Back in 67, 68, 69, Fz was more popular than Fleetwood Mac, Christ folks didn't know Peter green wrote Black magic woman, much less the end of the song , gypsy queen ,which was written by Gabor Szabo. Now Szabo WAS under ground and one of the best guitar players ever !!!

_________________A government Bureau is the closest thing to eternal life on earth that you will ever see

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 0 guests

You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot post attachments in this forum